


Penny for Your Thoughts

by kitkatt0430



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Character Study, Drabble Collection, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Obsession, One-Sided Attraction, introspective, respect between colleagues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2020-10-11 12:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20545841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitkatt0430/pseuds/kitkatt0430
Summary: A series of drabbles about Caitlin's thoughts on the various characters who come and go (or stay) over the course of the show.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The drabbles aren't really meant to be connected, but they can certainly be taken as such.

_ **Harrison "Harry" Wells (And Eobard Thawne)** _

He says her name differently, after they spoke at the bar. Looks at her differently. It's not interest like how Jay looks at her, either. But like... she's a colleague. Someone worth respecting.

He says her name almost the same way Dr. Wells did. But there's something there - something the fake Wells lacked. An emotional depth that makes her realize that she doesn't feel like she has something to prove. 

Wells - fake Wells - had always made her feel like she had to measure up. 'He challenges me' she'd tell herself. 'Challenges me to do better.' Now she wonders if everything that man did was calculated to make everyone else feel lesser. They weren't challenged to do better; they were put in their place. Beneath him.

Not that this one thinks he has equals. But he doesn't dangle his approval out like a carrot on a string either. She might very well come to like that about him, even.

(She might already like that about him.)

_ **Hunter Zolomon** _

Caitlin had found the attention flattering at first. Jay's attractive and a hero, but circumstances mean he's pretty much forcibly retired from the danger. Mostly, anyway. And he has a problem that she might be able to solve.

And he's a problem she can focus on so that she doesn't have to think about Ronnie anymore. About him being dead twice over and how he stopped being there when she needed him, though it wasn't his fault, not really...

If she's honest with herself about it, Caitlin had wished she could've fallen in love with him. But then he died.

And, yes, he did die. Because he killed himself. Because that was what Hunter Zolomon did. He destroyed everything in his life that could be good and he did it gleefully. Maybe the only time he felt anything - truly felt anything at all - was when he was in pain.

The funny thing is, when its all said and done, she thinks that despite the trauma he inflicted on her... he really did like her. After all, she was the only victim he ever let walk away.

_ **Julian Albert** _

Julian is kind and sweet. A dear friend. But the way he looks at her...

He'd venture into a parallel reality for her, keep watch over her violent alter ego for her sake, take her out for dinner and tell jokes to make her smile... but the truth of it all, the truth of her feelings...

Caitlin is tired of being the love interest.

_ **HR Wells (And Cisco)** _

She was never quite certain he didn't have a crush on Cisco. The way HR trailed after him, aspired to inspire him, desperate for the young engineer's approval...

Perhaps Cisco reminded HR of the partner he left behind, who'd used HR as the public face of STAR Labs but proved in the end that he'd never truly respected HR. Certainly Cisco is the most reluctant of them all to accept HR. But HR is like...

Like a puppy, really. Bouncy and fun, eager to please. And the one he wants to please the most? Cisco.

But Cisco had wanted a mentor. Someone to look up to, someone like... Harry, really. And HR was about as far away from Harry as possible, without changing his face. And the thing was... Cisco didn't need a mentor anymore. Not really. Maybe once he figured that out, he'd stop pushing HR away.

_ **Ronnie Raymond** _

It's not until a week after what would've been their first wedding anniversary that Caitlin realizes the date has passed. She didn't even notice. What did that say about her, she wonders, when she can't cry anymore? Not for his loss, not for forgetting the date, not for...

It had never truly felt real. It had been a dream, nothing more. And she'd woken to reality soon afterwards with nothing to show but broken promises.

_ **Ralph Dibny (And Killer Frost)** _

He makes her feel normal. Once his masks peel away and the misogyny he weaponized to keep people at bay fades into the occasional bad habit, Ralph makes Caitlin smile. Makes her laugh. Makes her feel like whatever is going on with her and her alter ego is actually pretty cool.

Caitlin and Killer Frost step ever closer towards being friends - as Ralph puts it, being sisters - and they've got him to thank for some of that. He's family now.

They hope he knows this.


	2. Chapter 2

_ **Tina McGee** _

Tina knew what it was like to be betrayed by Harrison Wells and she welcomed Caitlin into Mercury Labs with open arms. But she didn't seem surprised, either, when a few months down the line Caitlin gave her two weeks notice. There was kindness and understanding there when Caitlin told Tina that she intended to go back, to rejoin Cisco at STAR Labs and help rebuild it into something better. Warmth, too. A courteous acceptance towards Caitlin's decisions that made Caitlin feel respected, not belittled.

"I'm sorry to see you go and I'd try to talk you out of it if I thought I had a chance at all of doing so. You're a brilliant woman, Dr. Snow, and I have no doubt you'll succeed at your endeavors at STAR Labs. But... please remember that you'll always have a place here at Mercury Labs if you choose to return."

There's a part of Caitlin that wishes, desperately, her mother had been more like Tina McGee.

* * *

_ **Wally West** _

"Zoom wouldn't have been able to take you if Barry hadn't given up his powers to save me."

Caitlin had some awful nightmares the night before, of Zoom and Killer Frost and being lost inside her own head. This is not a topic she wants to discuss right now. But the guilt in Wally's voice reminds her of Barry, makes her want to wrap the kid up in blankets and protect him from the world that he so badly wants to save. (She's seen the envy in Wally's eyes when Barry runs. Wally wants to be just like his big brother. It's so sweet it hurts, sneers a voice in the back of her head that Caitlin doesn't want to investigate too closely.)

"What Zoom did," Caitlin begins, putting a gentle hand on Wally's shoulder, "what Hunter did was not your fault. Hunter was broken a very long time ago and his choices were his own. The awful things he did to you, to me, to Barry, to Jesse... to the people he murdered... none of that is any of our faults. I know its a lot easier said than done, Wally, but I want you to try to stop feeling guilty about what happened to me. It wasn't your fault."

He nodded and Caitlin can tell Wally's not really convinced yet. But she thinks, perhaps, her words will end up helping eventually anyway. And something in her own chest eases in response.

* * *

_ **Barry Allen** _

He's all curiosity and bright smiles and its so easy to forget how much he lost during the time he spent in a coma. And then he crashes into the barrier at Ferris Aire and shatters his wrist.

"What happened out there today?" Dr. Wells asked, voicing the concern Caitlin, and presumably also Cisco, had from the moment Barry slammed into the pavement. "You were moving pretty well and then something caused you to lose focus."

Barry's smile disappears and he's staring ahead, but he isn't looking at anything they can see, but something that hurt him long ago.

Caitlin knows that look. She's worn it herself. Seen it on Cisco's face since the accelerator failed and Ronnie died.

"I started remembering something," Barry tells them quietly. "When I was eleven, my mother was murdered." That's when Caitlin knows he's a little broken, just like she is.

Maybe his curiosity and bright smiles aren't so off putting after all; not when, beneath the surface, they're very much the same.

* * *

_ **Iris West** _

Caitlin never knows what to say to Iris West. She's beautiful, poised, confident, everything that Caitlin tries hard to pretend to be, but rarely feels she is. 

At work, Caitlin's more comfortable with male peers than other women. Mostly because women are rare in her field. Mercury Labs was probably the first time in years that she'd had a female colleague that she got along with well. And even then it was easy to say goodbye. But Iris West isn't going anywhere and neither is Caitlin. They're so different and so similar and Caitlin wishes that making friends with another woman came naturally to her. But Caitlin's brain stalls out and she can never find the words to say to turn them from acquaintances to friends.

And Iris always smiles and seems to look right through Caitlin.

Its not fair that Frost found the words when Caitlin couldn't. But when Iris asks Caitlin to be her maid of honor, her gaze is steady. She's looking at Caitlin, almost as though she's seeing her for the first time and likes what she found there.

They could be friends after all, Caitlin thinks, and finds peace in her heart.

* * *

_ **Hartley Rathaway** _

"I think," Hartley says with the careful enunciation of someone who isn't exactly sober, "what you dislike the most about me is how much we're alike."

"I'm going to miss you, Hartley," Caitlin replies instead of 'you're probably right'. It's surprising to realize she means what she said too. She's really going to miss him when he's gone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still have some more characters in mind for Caitlin to muse on, so there's still at least one more chapter to go :)


	3. Chapter 3

_ **Jax Jackson** _

"I'm sorry," she says, afterwords. After FIRESTORM rose again, triumphantly reborn on a football stadium.

Ronnie played high school football too. She should have remembered that.

"I get it now," Jax offers. "You felt like you were losing Ronnie all over again."

"I did feel that way," Caitlin agreed, blinking back tears. "If I lost Martin too... the part of Ronnie that lives on with him would have..."

"I kind of feel like I met him now. Through the Professor." Jax's words are slow, deliberately chosen. Ronnie would have like that about him, the care Jax takes to find the right words. "He loved you very much. It was never... it was never about being a hero, for him. At least... that's the impression I get. It was that he wanted to protect the ones he loved."

"You have that in common with him," Caitlin told Jax. She thinks, as he smiles, maybe they'll be okay.

* * *

_ **Joe West** _

She's old enough not to need a dad anymore. At least, that's what she tells herself. She's in her twenties, she cut ties with her mother for a reason, her dad's been dead for years. She never saw Dr. Wells as a parental figure. (An untouchable mentor, but not a parent.) Caitlin Snow can handle things on her own.

So it's not quite clear to her how she came to be sobbing quietly in Joe's arms while he rubbed her back gently. He didn't promise it'd be all right. He just held her and let her cry it out.

But it's nice. Caitlin had forgotten what it was like to be held by a father. What it was like to be deemed worthy of a parent's love. And a little part of her wishes that Joe West was her dad too.

* * *

_ **Martin Stein** _

Caitlin doesn't know how to untangle Martin from Ronnie. Ronnie died so many times it was hard to remember it was real this time and so his death became tangled up in Martin's life.

She loves Martin. But Caitlin can never be sure if she loves Martin for himself - for the friend and mentor he became - or for the pieces of Ronnie she strains to see within him. When he leaves for the Legends, for time travel and adventure, it's almost a relief.

Maybe this time she can let Ronnie go.

* * *

** _Carla Tannhauser_ **

Caitlin gets it now.

Carla had faked her husbands death because he kept turning into a monstrous and unrecognizable font of anger armed with cryokinesis. She'd swerved from losing her husband from one disease to seemingly another, one she'd helped create. It was no wonder she'd thrown herself into her work and distanced herself from Caitlin. She'd been punishing herself, all these years.

She can even understand why Carla hid the truth of Frost's true origins from Caitlin. In fact, Carla might not have even been aware that Thomas had used the ALS cure on Caitlin - she's a little afraid to ask, even now - and genuinely believed that Caitlin's metahuman origins weren't precisely the same.

It must've been terrifying for Carla, though. To finally have her daughter come back into her life, only to see Caitlin going through the very same process that had ripped Thomas from her all those years ago.

None of this makes up for the way Carla treated Caitlin as a child and teenager. Nothing will ever make up for the missed school events and the broken promises. For the alienating disinterest and coldness that had seeped through Caitlin's childhood home and frozen both their hearts.

But understanding is the first step towards forgiveness. And Caitlin finally believes that, just maybe, she can learn to forgive her mother one day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is the end of Penny stories. I might come back for more later, but this feels like a good stopping point.


End file.
